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When Justin Lewis sat down to write World Fever, his football anthem released this week, he had one person in mind: his late uncle, Lewis Pragasam — the drummer and percussionist celebrated internationally as the “King of Percussion.”

Pragasam, who died in 2023 at 66, spent decades pioneering the fusion of Asian ethnic rhythms with Western jazz, and founded Asiabeat in 1979 — a cross-cultural music project that brought Malaysian sounds to international stages.